Cars & Cameras

Back when I first started law school, my car broke down. In fact it broke down the day before the first day of class, when I didn't know anyone, didn't know where the grocery store was, didn't live near any form of public transportation. I relied on strangers to give me rides until I rented an aveo and an x-5 (you can see pix from my first posts). My car was in the shop for a week.

Well, last week my car decides to break down again. Like really break down like huge plumes of smoke break down. Oh, did I mention it was the day before exams? Ya, try getting a ride from someone the day before exams, or even worse, the day of the exam. The thing is, when your car breaks down you don't get the chance to shop around and find a good mechanic that's not booked and when you go rent a car, you get last priority - most expensive vehicle. So I got a Volvo S40. It's C's car but 15 years newer. And it cost me $45/day. And the car repairs (power steering leaking into the engine oil box) cost $600. So I'm out of pocket $750. I took the exam, and then the NEXT DAY I had to take my car BACK to the shop. And I had another exam today. My mechanic told me to stop being paranoid about my car and that it's all good now.

Now, why does this even matter? Well, that was my camera money. I picked a digi SLR and I set a budget of $700 for lens and body, and that was it. I may get the camera yet though claiming it as a graduation gift.

Even with my obsolete camera though you can get great pictures of Muffy. The camera guide told me to not center my subject in the photo, but the focusing options don't allow anything but a giant centered Muffy head. If you look in detail, you can learn a lot about cat eyes.

Preview of Japan...

At some point, unknown when, I'll upload some of the better pictures from the first time I went to Japan. But for now, it's interesting to compare some of my pictures with my brother's...

Kyoto Golden Pavilion in October:

Brother's version from February:


Kyoto trees in October:


Bamboo In February:

Kiyomizu in October:

Kiyomizu, just as popular, in February.

Assorted China

What sort of person has the time to post pictures all night? Is this what it's like to have a hobby? And how lame a hobby is this? One day, I want to cover my walls with pictures of places I've been, but in a tasteful way.

Terra cotta soldiers.

Me in China. It was damn cold and smelly and crowded everywhere, but the pictures don't reflect this, and the cold haze actually softens the angles.


Here I tried to get the haze and traffic (on the right). This is Xian, the town encased in a wall.


And even out here we've got wheelbarrow people...
And that's it for China.

Shanghai

Cyberspace is great. It's like talking to yourself but it's recorded forever and ever so you know you're not crazy, you did have that conversation, but it was with yourself. So these pictures are like that for me, its anti-amnesia.

Secret garden in Shanghai that's now open to the public for a fee.
I like this picture because it reminds me of what a Chinese garden looks like as opposed to the more popular Japanese garden.


Shanghai's tourist trap zone. I think it's like the French Quarter, which I've also never been to, both created for the tourists and not representive of reality.

A door, like the gardens, to remind me of what's a Chinese door.


One of those rivers the NY Times loves to write about, where the locals dump their feces and dead pets and occasionally, their relatives. It's in some town called Suzhou, and it was really nasty.

Photos of Beijing & Great Wall

You have no idea of the extent of my photo collection. I just post the ones I like at any given moment but I have many many more.

Back then when I was photographing Beijing, I think I tried to capture a certain quality, the foreign, communist side I think...

Soldiers around town.


Frozen lake and its towering fortress.


Forbidden city - soldiers and wheelbarrow people. I loved them. It's like the job motto in futurama - ya gotta do what ya gotta do.


A man and his wall.


I walked there. It wasn't that great. I should have taken pictures showing how it and China wasn't that great, b/c my photos make it look kinda awesome.

Everglades & Miami

Somebody told me that my life peaked and it was all downhill from there. It was a joke, but just in case that person's right....I mean things trigger jokes, and that was something of an odd joke to make...I'm going to start posting some of my older pre-yellowcat blog pictures. It's like a chronology of my life, but I'm not famous enough to have a biographer so I have to do it myself.

It's also for my own convenience, it's easy for me to locate pictures when I'm not at my computer by using my blog. It's also good because workplaces frown upon storing pictures in facebook, myspace, and some of the photobuckets. I think in comparison, fewer people have blogspot accounts. It's my unproven theory that accessing blogspot in a workplace would trigger fewer alerts than accessing facebook.

Everglades in general: Worst national park ever. It's true.


Key West, FL road connecting the keys.


Sunrise @ key west. Notable b/c it's about as far south as you can go in the states.


Sunrise 2. I was really into sunrises back then.


Miami - home of royal caribean headquarters.

Wildflowers 2

The pink and red flowers bloom in these inaccessible places (next to freeways) so instead I went to my lagoon. I've been sick so I thought taking a run would fix everything, but it only makes things worse + adds on allergies.


Being gay and using macro mode.


this picture's kind of washed out but I thought it looks good this way.


I've got my last law review obligation in a few minutes, I'm thinking 6-8 hours. Looking forward to my last day of class in a week and a half and then pretty soon the end of it all.

Wildflowers 1

I must confess wildflowers 2 exists only in my mind. But I plan to do that soon. I've meant to take pictures of the wildflowers for a few weeks now, and I figured I should do it soon as this looks to be one of the last weeks they'll be in bloom. It's another 90 degree heat wave and you know those roots are drying out fast.

Yellow & purple (3 kinds of purple not all here) by Mission Bay.


The swamp that is the Rio San Diego. You can almost feel the mosquitos breeding.

The flowers make the sewage/waste dump tunnels look nice.

Wildflowers 2 will supposedly contain the pinks, reds, and whites but they're a lot further so we'll see how things go.

My American Airlines & Airport Story

So I made all my flights. The reason - American Airlines, which does not hold flights, held a flight. Sadly, I was already on that flight. They held it for someone else. So I got back 40min late to San Diego.

But I'm glad I got back because I was on one of those planes with faulty wiring and if I flew today they'd have canceled my flight. Also I'm never going to fly American again because their planes are massively uncomfortable, not clean, and the Dallas airport sucks because it's huge, convoluted, and owned by American Airlines. Also Detroit Airport sucks. More than Oakland. And Oakland really sucks.

And I'm diseased today as a result. I think it's safe to say I may never fly to Detroit again. Unless I get to see the good great lake....since it's not Erie, I'm thinking now it's Huron...

Detroit

I make Detroit look good. In reality, it's comparable to Baltimore. Except Baltimore has a nice revitalized waterfront. Detroit - well I'll get to it in a bit.

This picture includes three things. Three things that define Detroit. A gambling boat - representing ephemeral illusory hope. The bridge to Canada - representing an escape to a better, unknown, exotic frontier. And the river connecting it all, the Detroit River, an everlasting reminder of good things to come. What is it that Anne Frank said, that in spite of it all I believe people are really good at heart? Well...I believe the city will return to its old glory, one day.

Caught a Detroit Tigers v White Sox game at Comerica Park. That picture isn't distorted, the tiger is chewing at a giant bat.


Inside the park. Everyone's lining up for daiquiris. I just got ice cream. The game was at a weird time, 355pm. And somehow the Tigers got Dontrelle Willis! I like it when I recognize pitchers.


Across the street. Isn't that the most awesome hockey bar ever? And its full.

Visited the newly renovated, easily accessible to all kinds of people, DIA -NYtimes review. I gotta admit, it's a damn good museum for its location. Detroit isn't on the list of places to visit for most Americans, but this museum should be. The collection is admittedly a little eclectic, but it's huge and has quality pieces from famed artists, many American, but many European as well. It's not as good as something you'd find in Los Angeles, but it's not as bad as you'd expect from a museum in a mid-size city. I was very impressed by the quality of the museums in Toledo and Detroit.

Finally, classic Detroit...it's always been spelled WrenCen in my mind but that's not what it's really called =P

Assorted non-Michigan Cities

For some reason I had to go to Toledo. Toledo, Ohio. Yep, that's another state I never thought I would visit. Ever. But I did. It's got a fantastic museum. You see, some crazy super rich guy donated his entire crazy rich guy collection to the museum. He lived back in the days when crazy rich guys stole stuff from foreign countries and it was ok. So his museum, the main museum in Toledo, has the alterna-paintings by famous artists. Paintings of animals. Every painting had a dog in it. It's the kind of museum you'd expect in a has-been town. The kind of collection you'd expect would be owed by the nouveau rich.


The main street in Toledo between the museum and the glass museum across the street. Toledo used to be famous for its glass. Then people moved on...


Not Toledo .... but WINDSOR. You know where Windsor is right? I hope you do. Bowling for Columbine made it famous. It's where people don't lock their doors. They've got a Caesar's palace across the way. Working class town I guess.

Shot of a real real small town called Ypsilanti. Just here b/c its part of my collection of random towns. It's in Michigan. Small. East Michigan University (?) is located here. I ate here. These buildings will be converted into awesome condos worth about 100k in a few months.

Ann Arbor

I went to the Midwest! Kind of! Not really! Well, I went to a state I can't place on the map. Really, I can't place it. It's called Michigan. I had to skip a day of work, my coworkers think I'm the biggest flake in the world and will probably never hire another third year student as a result of hiring me, especially since I can't work over the summer, but I digress...

It's still winter out in the rest of the country so the trees are all dead and brown. But this is a classic American scene:


On this day it hit 60, the highest in months. The wetlands (which are everywhere) fostered (right word?) frogs. They were loud...remember the guy on the nature show who says, omg its so loud you have to come here to see what it's like, during breeding season of random endangered insect #456? Well, it was just like that, and I was in person, and ya it was loud, deafeningly loud. I think we decided they were frogs although I couldn't see them...

I really wanted my picnic on a great lake. Since I can't place Michigan on the map, I don't know which great lake it borders. But this is Lake Erie. What you can't see, is the nuclear power plant to the north. Clearly identifiable as a nuclear power plant. You also can't smell the smell of half defrosted rotting wetland. Or feel the slimy plastic film covering the water. But it is a lake. And this is a 'beach.'


The parking lot at the lake 'beach.' And the smokestacks (not the nuclear power plant - thats separate) in the background. You can see this is a popular place in the summer.

I go to Michigan today. Four flights total round trip, all 50% chance of delay. Wish me luck. 1.5hr connection, and 50min connection....I packed 3 cliff bars. That's like 2 eight hour days with no food. So for energy this morning, I'm eating a bag of baby carrots.

Next time I'm going to fly the first 6am flight of the day, or red eye. Less delays...

The one perk this time is I get free airport parking so I don't need to get a driver or a shuttle.